Real-time marketing enhanced

Twitter is already a go-to place for brands when it comes to special events and important days. It's a place where the conversation naturally gravitates during, say, the Super Bowl or elections.

Today, Twitter is launching new ad products that make it easier to promote around such peak times. "Event targeting" includes new automated tools with customized data that help set up campaigns aimed at users who participate most during specific events.

"When events happen in the real world, they also happen on Twitter," said Ameet Ranadive, head of Twitter's revenue product team. "From a marketing standpoint, it's really important for them to be a part of these events that are relevant to their audiences."

Twitter announced the event-targeting tools in a blog post today. Marketers will be able to look at a calendar with specific happenings like golf tournaments or awards shows as well as more general themes like back to school. The calendar lets brands plan months in advance.

There also are insights into audiences that have been most engaged with certain events in the past. Advertisers can target the most active users based on factors like gender, location and device type.

It's not a new concept for brands to buy Promoted Tweets during special occasions, but the platform has been working on its in-house technology to make the campaigns more effective. Twitter's 2013 acquisition of BlueFin Labs helped deliver the data services and technology behind event targeting.

BlueFin Labs also has helped Twitter build out the marketing capabilities around live television—which is similar to promoting around daily events.

"Marketers are already doing a lot of work on Twitter around these events, but it's a fairly manual process," Ranadive said. "We're trying to automate it all for them."